It is known that breast cancer is one of the more common cancer types for women, and affects one in eight women during their lives. Risk factors for breast cancer include, gender, age, genes, personal factors and other risks such as being overweight, using hormone replacement therapy (also called menopausal hormone therapy), taking birth control pills, drinking alcohol, not having children or having your first child after age 35 or having dense breasts.
Symptoms of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in size or shape of the breast or discharge from a nipple. Breast self-exam and mammography can help find breast cancer early when it is most treatable. The treatment of primary breast cancer usually consists of surgery, often followed by adjuvant therapy (radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormonal treatment, etc.).
Different types of treatment are available for patients with breast cancer. Most patients with breast cancer have surgery to remove the cancer from the breast, and several different surgical procedures exist for breast cancer removal. Other treatments include radiation therapy, a cancer treatment that uses high-energy x-rays or other types of radiation to kill cancer cells or keep them from growing. Chemotherapy is a cancer treatment that uses drugs to stop the growth of cancer cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Hormone therapy is a cancer treatment that removes hormones or blocks their action and stops cancer cells from growing. Targeted therapy is a type of treatment that uses drugs or other substances to identify and attack specific cancer cells without harming normal cells, using for example monoclonal antibodies and tyrosine kinase inhibitors.
The 2014 World Cancer Report from WHO (The World health organization) reports that breast cancer is the second most common cancer worldwide, accounting for just over 1 million new cases annually. It states that in 2000 (the last year for which global data exists) about 400,000 women died from breast cancer, representing 1.6 percent of all female deaths. The proportion of breast cancer deaths was far higher in the rich countries (2 percent of all female deaths) than in economically poor regions (0.5 percent). Thus, breast cancer is strongly related to the Western lifestyle. As developing countries succeed in achieving lifestyles similar to Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, they will also encounter much higher cancer rates, particularly cancers of the breast. Recent data supports this prediction and show a 20% increase in breast cancer from 2008 to 2012. (Carter D. “New global survey shows an increasing cancer burden”. Am J Nurs. 2014 March; 114(3):17).
Thus, there is a strong need for new types of treatment for breast cancer. While new treatment should aim at curing breast cancer, it would also be beneficial to improve the prognosis for a patient diagnosed with breast cancer or to increase the survival time for a patient diagnosed with breast cancer.